126 A GUIDE TO PRAYER. ble ourselves, because of our abounding sins,, and out many- necessities : when we have given praise to a God of such holi- ness, and having spread our wants before God, petitions for mercy naturally follow, and pleadingwith such divine arguments;: as theSpirit and the word of God put into our mouths, should accompany our requests ; after all, we resin ourselves into the hands of God, and express our self-dedication to him : then we recollect the mercies we have received, and out of gratitude pay him our tribute of honour and thanks. And as he is glorious in himself, and glorious in his work's of power and grace, so we bless him, and ascribe everlasting glory to him. I cannot but think it a very useful thing for young beginners in the work of prayer, to remember all these heads in their order, to dispose of their thoughts and desires before God in this method, proceeding regularly from one part to another. And as this must needs be useful to asist and teachus to pray in public, so sometimes inour secret retirements it may not be imporper to pursue the same practice. Yet it must be granted; there is no necessityof confining ourselves to this, or to any other set method, no more than there is of confining ourselves to a form in prayer. Sometimes the mind is so divinely frill of one particular part of prayer, perhaps of thanksgiving, or of self- resignation, that high expressions of gratitude, and of devoting ourselves to God, break out first. Lord, I am cometo devote myself to thee in an everlasting cove pant, I am thine through thy grace, and through the grace Iwill. be thinefor ever. Or thus, Blessed be thy name, O Lord God Almighty, for thine abundan6 bents, thatfill my soul with the sense of them,for thou hast pardoned all my iniquities, and heal. ed all my diseases. Sometimes, even in the beginning of a prayer, when we are insisting on one of the first parts of it, we receive a divine hint from the Spirit of God, that carries away our thoughts and our whole souls with warm affection into another part that is of a very different kind, and that usually perhaps- comes in near the conclusion : and when the Spirit of God thus'' leads us, and our.sonls are in a very devout frame, we are not to quench the 'Spirit of God, in order to tie ourselves to any set rules of prescribedmethod. There is no necessity that persons of great talents, of divine affections, of much converse with God, and that have attained to a good degree of this gift by long exercise, should bind them- , selves to any one certain method of prayer. For we find the prayers recorded in holy scripture are very various in the order and disposition of them, as the Spirit of God and the divine affections of those saints led and guided them : but still there is some method observed, and may be traced and demonstrated. I am persuaded, that if young Christians did nut give themselves
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